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One of a handful of renderings of Ellerbe Becket's new plans for the arena that leaked to the Times. (Courtesy nytimes.com)

As we wrote in our story last week, Frank Gehry might not be involved with any buildings on the Atlantic Yards site and not just the arena. As a Forest City Ratner spokesperson told me, “Frank might design one of the buildings later, I don’t think it’s impossible. But right now, he is just the master planner.” Well, as of yesterday, WNYC reported that the it will be impossible after all:

Just two years ago, developer Forest City Ratner was insisting Gehry would design each and every one of the 16 towers that surrounded the arena. Gehry had dubbed one of them Miss Brooklyn. But two sources close to the project say now the developer is not planning to use Gehry any more, citing costs, the architect’s lack of interest and the complications of meshing different architectural styles in a small space. A spokesman for Forest City Ratner said Gehry is still “involved” in the project but did not answer specific questions. The developer says it plans to break ground on the arena this fall, and the first residential building six months later.

While this is unsurprising news, it highlights just how challenging the project will be going forward, from the prospective of design, and also reaffirms a frequent criticism of Ratner’s project, that the developer has no interest in building anything but the arena. Sure, it could be done, but at what (additional) cost?